


Untitled Sam Ficlet #1

by Astarloa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 18:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astarloa/pseuds/Astarloa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean never escaped from Purgatory, so Sam's breaking in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled Sam Ficlet #1

It's the second of November: All Soul’s Day.

Sam only cares about one.

The date is circled in bright red, permanent marker on a calendar hung next to the fridge. Its motor rattles, loud and sullen, as Sam rubs the pad of his thumb over the ink. Forward for hope, back for what-was and then forward again. 

Maybe this year will be different and the ritual will work.

He’s told himself that lie seven times, now.

The weeks of his life have bled into years, leaving him older than Dean was on the day that he vanished. There are grey strands at Sam’s temples and his right elbow aches when rains. The doctor says that it’s nothing to worry about, just a mild form of arthritis. 

He’s safe, with a college degree and a two-bedroom apartment filled with mismatched crockery, tattered paperbacks and curtains he keeps meaning to wash but somehow doesn’t. He’s cold and alone, looking out from the wrong side of the glass, fists thudding dully against normal but unable to reach it. 

Sometimes he talks to himself, leaving spaces for the words Dean would have said if he were there. One-sided arguments that spark and die as quickly as cellophane catching alight, leaving behind only silence. In those moments it’s easy to pretend nothing’s changed.

When a neighbour asks, Sam blames the noise on a television he doesn’t own.

The words he speaks now are quiet and steady. 

They’re still lingering on his tongue; ephemeral and bitter, like daydreams of stale liquorice, when the world reimagines itself around him. There are dense trees bleached of colour and an overwhelming smell of heat, mud and blood. His breath stutters. 

The spell he’s using is the same as the last, with one difference: this time he’s going to Dean, rather than trying to bring his brother back.


End file.
